Commercial article printing typically occurs during the production of the article. For example, ball skins are printed with patterns or logos prior to the ball being completed and inflated. Consequently, a non-production establishment, such as a distribution site or retail store, for example, in a region in which potential product customers support multiple professional or collegiate teams, needs to keep an inventory of products bearing the logos of various teams popular in the area. Ordering the correct number of products for each different logo to maintain the inventory can be problematic.
One way to address these issues in non-production outlets is to keep unprinted versions of the products, and print the patterns or logos on them at the distribution site or retail store. Printers known as direct-to-object (DTO) printers have been developed for printing individual objects. These DTO printers have a plurality of printheads that are arranged in a vertical configuration with one printhead over another printhead. These printheads are fixed in orientation. When the objects to be printed are rounded, such as balls, water bottles, and the like, a complete ink image cannot be printed on the surface because the rounded surface falls away from the planar face of the printheads. Enabling DTO printers to be able to print ink images on all or a portion of the circumference of a rounded object would be beneficial.